Mountain Rocker

 My Raleigh back porch rocker has now become my mountain patio rocker.  I suppose it sits about the same as it did in Raleigh, but here in Candler, N.C., it seems to catch more cool breezes. Actually, today it’s catching cold breezes, cold at least for May 30, at sixty degrees with mountain winds swooping down with gale force gusts. No exaggeration!  Memorial Day in Raleigh is usually hot and humid, or rainy and monsoon-like.  Whatever the temperature and weather, the rocker does not seem to mind.  It rocks on and doesn’t fret that its oak wood is aging in the rain, sun, snow, or whatever comes its way.  It’s as if it has a will of its own which unconditionally offers itself to anyone and in any circumstance.  Such graciousness cannot be found in a satin sofa, or even my den lounge chair which visitors avoid as they seem to know it belongs to me. 

I love my rocker enough that I once entered it in a contest: “Most beautiful back porch.”  You send in a photo of your rocker on the porch and someone in New York judges it and then awards first place to someone in Manhattan whose “porch” looks like a French country home parlor.  Madison Avenue has no idea what an oak rocker in the Appalachians feels like.  They just cannot imagine rocking to the sounds of the goats bleating across Dogwood Road, or the occasion braying of an old donkey over the ridge. They might even turn up their noses at the faint and familiar barn scents occasionally wafting their way to my patio. And they would certainly cower under their futon if they heard one of the blasts from what sounds like a Civil War re-enactment in the Hominy Valley (I hope it is a “re-enactment.” Some of those pickups with confederate flags seemed pretty menacing during the last election). 

But my sturdy oak rocker knows none of this.  It is unimpressed by the pretentiousness of the elite or the intimidation of any self-proclaimed militia (aka, “terrorists”). It would probably welcome either of them to sit awhile with its oaken arms accepting and supporting them, even in all their ignorance or arrogance. 

I know this is true of my rocker. That’s exactly what it has done for me all these years. And I am hopeful it will stick with me in all that is ahead as well.  I know it will.  That’s the way it is with good ole rockers. They are just so full of grace.